The invention relates to a device for generating decontamination agent vapor, in more particularly to a device for generating hydrogen peroxide vapor using an evaporator body, a heating unit for heating the evaporator body and a plurality of feed channels for feeding decontamination liquid to be evaporated.
Hydrogen peroxide vapor is used for the decontamination of isolators and/or locks in the pharmaceutical industry, due to its high reactivity. Hydrogen peroxide vapor is obtained by evaporating an aqueous hydrogen peroxide solution. To minimise the explosion risk during the evaporation of solutions containing hydrogen peroxide, so-called flash evaporators (also known as flash vapor generators) are used, with the aim of the continuous, rapid (i.e., in a flash) evaporation of small quantities of liquid containing hydrogen peroxide. It is not permitted for larger quantities of liquid containing hydrogen peroxide to be boiled, due to the aforementioned explosion risk. The difficulty in evaporating small quantities of hydrogen peroxide-containing liquid, particularly aqueous solutions, is the formation of liquid droplets which “dance” on hot evaporator surfaces and impede efforts towards rapid evaporation.
A hydrogen peroxide vapor generator with a flat evaporator surface is known from DE 10 2006 006 095 A1. The aforementioned “dancing” droplet formation can take place with such a device.
An alternative flash evaporator (i.e., high-speed evaporator) is known from EP 0 972 159 B1, which is characterised by evaporator channels disposed in an evaporator body in a hydraulically interconnecting manner. The design is relatively complex. In relation to the further state of the art, reference is made to DE 602 03 603 T2 or DE 603 00 820 T2.
A hydrogen peroxide evaporator with a pot-like housing and an evaporator body is known from DE 2005 030 822 A1. This evaporator has a single, large-scale evaporator surface, and heat is supplied to the decontamination agent only from below. This evaporator is in need of improvement in terms of its evaporation rate and also in relation to the avoidance of “dancing” decontamination agent droplets. It is further known from DE 2005 030 822 A1 to use a plurality of evaporators each connected via one line to a vessel requiring sterilization, in order to increase the total amount of decontamination vapor. The total evaporator costs are therefore incurred x-times. In addition, a plurality of vapor lines must be conducted into the space to be evaporated, which is problematic in the case of small spaces due to lack of available space. In addition, a plurality of seals must then be provided.
A water evaporator is known from CN 2009 43844 Y. This evaporator has an evaporator body with a plurality of small holes. A single feed channel is jointly assigned to these holes, and the feed channel is disposed centrally above the evaporator body. So that the plurality of small holes can make their contribution to the evaporation, a sufficiently large quantity of liquid must be fed through the single feed channel, although this would runs counter to the goal of the spontaneous flash evaporation of decontamination agents. In practice, this would result in a hazardous boiling of decontamination agents. This evaporator is not therefore suitable for evaporating decontamination agents.
All the aforementioned flash evaporators are characterized by a comparatively complex design and/or by an evaporation rate capable of improvement.